ever remembered in the country. The great bay of New York
was frozen over. No supplies could come to the city by water.
Provisions grew scanty; and there was such lack of firewood that old
transports were broken up, and uninhabited wooden houses pulled down
for fuel. The safety of the city was endangered. The ships-of-war,
immovably ice-bound in its harbor, no longer gave it protection. The
insular security of the place was at an end. An army with its heaviest
artillery and baggage might cross the Hudson on the ice.

Washington was aware of the opportunity which offered itself for a
signal _coup de main_, but was not in a condition to profit by it. His
troops, hutted among the heights of Morristown, were half fed, half
clothed, and inferior in number to the garrison of New York. He was
destitute of funds necessary to fit them for the enterprise, and the
quartermaster could not furnish means of transportation.

Still, in the frozen condition of the bay and rivers, some minor blow
might be attempted, sufficient to rouse and cheer the spirits of the
people. With this view, having ascertained that the ice formed a
bridge across the strait between the Jersey shore and Staten Island,
he projected a descent upon the latter by Lord Stirling with
twenty-five hundred men, to surprise and capture a British force of
ten or twelve hundred. His lordship crossed on the night of the 14th
of January, from De Hart's Point to the island. His approach was
discovered; the troops took refuge in the works, which were too
strongly situated to be attacked; a channel remaining open through the
ice across the bay, a boat was despatched to New York for
reinforcements. The projected surprise having thus proved a complete
failure, and his own situation becoming hazardous, Lord Stirling
recrossed to the Jersey shore with a number of prisoners whom he had
captured.

By way of retort, Knyphausen, on the 25th of January, sent out two
detachments to harass the American outposts. One crossed to Paulus
Hook, and being joined by part of the garrison of that post, pushed on
to Newark, surprised and captured a company stationed there, set fire
to the academy, and returned without loss. The other detachment,
consisting of one hundred dragoons and between three and four hundred
infantry, under Lieutenant-colonel Boskirk, crossed from Staten Island
to Trembly's Point, surprised the picket-guard at Elizabethtown, and
captured two majors, two captains, and fort